Notes: This is a sequel to Hiding, though the focus shifts a bit. There will be yaoi (duh!), violence, and who knows what else before I'm done.

Chapter 1: Real and Imitation

Iruka strolled into the mission room with a bandana-style hitae-ate tied backwards on his head, his hair down and showing beneath it, and a senbon clenched between his teeth. He slouched over to a corner and slumped against the wall, surveying the room carefully. Naruto and Sasuke were standing in front of Yori's desk at the moment; Sasuke waiting patiently while Naruto rambled on about the mission in detail Yori probably really didn't care about. Finally, Shino who was in line behind them, stepped forward to stand directly behind Naruto, who paled and pretty much bolted. Same old dynamic, even if they weren't kids anymore, and Iruka wanted to smile but smirked a bit instead.

A few of the other shinobi in the mission room waved to him, greeting him as if he were Genma even though he didn't look anything like Genma beyond his clothing and body language. This "prank" was a well-established one, and most people knew that even if they spoke to him as Iruka, he would ignore them. He'd first "impersonated" Genma when he was about 12 years old and still a shadow at the other man's heels, and so the sudden appearance of "Iruka-as-Genma" in the mission room brought no suspicion.

Iruka sighed inwardly. He didn't want to spend his day lounging around the mission room playing "the gossip game". He'd been ready to kill Genma when he had shown up at his door that morning with his spare clothes (slightly altered) and thrown them at him along with a mission scroll. Genma's face still bore the "I will not injure Iruka's boyfriend" tattoo across it, and Iruka had laughed to see his stubborn friend still hadn't found a way to get it off himself. It had been there almost a month, and he had yet to ask Iruka to take it off or even admit it existed. After reading the scroll Genma handed him however, he wasn't laughing anymore, and he had quickly reached out to release the jutsu. "Be careful, Gen-chan" he had whispered to Genma that morning, but Genma had only tossed him a quirky grin and left.

So now Iruka was in the mission room, wishing he wasn't spending what should have been his day off there. But orders were orders, and so Iruka glanced around for his first target, trying to pull his "Genma persona" around him and be ready for a lot more deception than his daily life typically involved.

After a month of basically being Iruka-sensei's trainee, Soseki Yori thought she was used to him, and all the things that came with him. His perverted Jounin boyfriend who just wouldn't stay away during Iruka's shifts unless he was on a mission, his friend Genma who seemed to live for gossip and not have much else to occupy his time, his ex-students who still treated him as if he were their teacher, his moods, his temper, the efficiency with which he handled people, knowing exactly how to get them to do whatever they were supposed to be doing without protest. Yes, Yori was pretty sure she had Iruka all figured out, until he threw her yet another curveball. Like showing up on his day off pretending to be Genma, without much of a disguise… and better yet, how everyone simply accepted this and went about their business.

Izumo noticed her distress and laid a hand on Yori's shoulder. "Not to worry, he hasn't cracked. It's an old joke of theirs, since we were kids. Just pretend he's Genma and don't ask him about it, okay?"

"But… why?" asked the Chuunin woman, her pretty face showing clear confusion.

Izumo shrugged. "Who knows why? He might be better known as Iruka-sensei now, but our dear Iruka is nothing if not a prankster, and I'm sure he's up to no good somehow. If you're not his target, it's better to stay out of his way, and if you are, well… good luck."

Yori shook her head, trying once again to figure out the many faces of Iruka, not knowing that Iruka was at the very moment regretting this particular face, wishing he'd never innocently remarked to Sandaime once that the mission room was sure a hotbed of gossip, and anyone controlling and collecting that gossip should be able to both thwart traitors and spot shinobi on the verge of breaking who needed to be treated or taken out of the field.

The real Genma, meanwhile, was on his way out of town. He walked alone, his walk speaking of cold efficiency, his mind carefully cataloguing mission details and planning for the all contingencies. He spared only the briefest thought for his friend Iruka, even now impersonating him, only a moment of sadness for the loss of a tattoo on his face the he hadn't honestly tried to remove, that he had looked at every morning to remind him that even if Iruka were with someone else, nothing had changed between them, the prank more a sign of affection to Genma than any touch could have been. Then his thoughts turned to the strangely out-of-place hug his usually less affectionate friend Raidou had given him the last time he saw him, and how Raidou now called him Gen-chan, and it if meant what he thought it meant. Then he shook his head, and all thoughts of friends and names and pranks melted away in the face of duty.

It was a long, long day. Iruka's mind was an impressive weapon, and when he turned it against the problem of the complexities of shinobi society, it made short work of the mess. He updated Genma's files quickly, but then found himself sitting in the middle of the secret file room staring blankly. The mission his friend had gone on was very dangerous, he knew by the other man's behavior when he had come by that morning to give Iruka his orders for the day and get the prank-jutsu removed. Genma hadn't joked with him, hadn't hit on him, and more importantly, hadn't had the usual teasing glint in his eyes. It worried Iruka, because while Genma went on plenty of missions, most didn't make him so serious.

Iruka sighed. He worried about everyone too much, and he knew it. Shinobi fought, shinobi killed, and shinobi died. That's what they did. All this worrying was going to kill Iruka, but he didn't know how to stop it. He sometimes wished he could take more of the harder missions himself, that he could be out there fighting, killing and someday dying too, instead of here worrying, but he'd chosen his own path years ago. He'd done his share of missions before choosing to become a teacher, and occasionally afterwards, and he knew that while he was thinking of Genma right now, Genma wouldn't be thinking of him.

Shiranui Genma wasn't going to make it back to Konoha. He was fairly sure of this, logically. He had far too many enemies on his trail, was far too exhausted, and quite simply wasn't sure what his next move was. He had known this mission was going to be dangerous, and the whole point was to get in, make the kill, get the goods, and get out before anyone saw him. He had signed his death warrant the moment his victim had spotted him, but he'd made the kill, and got the goods, and now he was pretending he still had a chance. He wasn't quite sure why he bothered. If he was smart, he figured, he would take one of his own poisons while he had the chance, keep him from being captured or tortured, and say goodbye to this life.

Instead he was running, leaving traps behind him, trying to find a way to get back to Konoha without bringing the enemy with him. He couldn't kill them all, he knew, but he hoped to lose them or separate them. He mentally ran through his supplies, figuring out what he could set up with what he had. He still had a couple of special tags Iruka had given him tucked away that could help in a pinch, if he could just get into the right place to use them… modified explosive tags that had various effects, which usually proved very useful in situations like this. If he survived, he'd thank Iruka for them later, he figured, setting the first one just as one his pursuers neared. He felt it go off behind him with a "poof" and heard the laughter of the enemy nin who thought he'd made a mistake… which was fine with Genma. Soon enough, that nin and anyone he came in contact with would be dead from a very vicious and easily spread poison, and Genma could only hope he'd regroup with his teammates to spread it before it kicked in.

Half an hour later, there were considerably less enemies following him. None, in fact. The "Umino Special" tag had taken out a few and Genma had managed to pick off the survivors with a combination of senbon, ninjutsu, and once a very messy kill with a rock after he ran out of weapons. He might not be a legend, but Shiranui Genma was a shinobi of Konoha, and he wasn't going to go down like that, he decided. He stumbled in the gates of the Village looking more like something the cat dragged in, covered in mud and blood, practically falling over. Kotetsu grabbed him as he came in the gate and teleported them off to the hospital, passing him off into the capable hands of Haruno Sakura.

Iruka wound up getting a message in the middle of the night, since he was still the first person on Genma's contact list. He was worn down from several days of impersonating Genma, especially since there had been a bit of a crisis involving a crazed Jounin that Iruka wound up having to stop himself, because there wasn't time to get help. Iruka wasn't really any match for the man, with his low chakra supply, but he'd managed to trick his way out of the situation, barely. So when an already-shaken Iruka heard that his oldest friend had returned from his mission half-dead, he didn't take it well.

He found himself sitting in the hospital, still chewing on a senbon as if he were imitating Genma, even though he wasn't at the moment. He finally took it out of his mouth and stabbed it into the pressure point between his finger and thumb, hoping to calm himself. It worked, a little, he though, because his head became clear enough to realize he should really be talking to Raidou about now instead of sitting here waiting alone for Sakura to finish working on Genma.

Half an hour later, Iruka was back at the hospital, this time with the larger scar-faced shinobi in tow. The two sat in silence for a while, and then Raidou said, "That wasn't one of the poisoned ones, was it, Iruka-kun?" He pointed at the senbon still lodged in Iruka's hand.

Iruka followed his eyes, pulled it out sheepishly, and put it back in his mouth.

"Forgot I put that there. Not poisoned, exactly. It's got a mild sedative on it. I always use that when I play Genma, because it gets a little stressful for me. So it's double-soothing, when I use that acupuncture point and a sedative."

Raidou nodded slowly, then looked at Iruka inquisitively. "So, you've known for a while now, right? I mean, what I think about Genma…"

Iruka shrugged. "I was pretty sure last time you were in here, actually, but I haven't said anything to him about it" He remembered making an offhand comment about opening his eyes and ears, but surely that didn't count since he hadn't mentioned Raidou exactly when he said it. "I kind of wish you would just tell him, so you two could work it out."

Raidou shrugged. "Kind of stuff's not easy for me," he said and then let the silence settle in again. It wasn't much longer when Sakura emerged.

She looked around and spotted Iruka and Raidou, slumped into chairs in the waiting area. Sighing, the medic-nin ran her hands through her pink hair and made her way over to them. "Iruka-sensei, Raidou-san," she started. "Genma is going to be fine. He had a lot of minor injuries, but no major ones, except a bit of poison damage. He would be dead if he hadn't built up a tolerance to this particular poison, but instead it's just wreaking havoc on his system. I'd let you see him, but I don't want to have to pass out antidotes to the whole village. I already have to find Kotetsu and Izumo and make sure they take it." She glowered at Iruka. "Why do you still use that, Iruka-sensei, and why did you give it to him?"

Iruka sighed, and stabbed the senbon into his other hand this time. "Because it works, Sakura-chan. He was on a solo mission, so it shouldn't have been a danger of infecting anyone else, except that he used it too close to the time he came home. Still, sometimes that kind of tactic works when nothing else does."

"He would have been dead otherwise," Sakura conceded. "He told me the circumstances, and I can't believe he made it back as it is. Still, I don't want to have to deal with a plague because of this, so no one goes in that room." She held up a hand to stop Iruka's argument before it could start. "Not even you, Iruka-sensei. I know you're pretty much immune to this thing, but I won't take any risks. I had to expend almost as much chakra protecting myself as healing your friend, I'm tired, and I just want to go home and rest. So get the hell out of here, and come back tomorrow!" With that, the kunoichi turned on her heel and stomped away, and Iruka and Raidou stood there looking after her in awe.